Therefore I dismiss the pretension founded on the power to make regulations, as I dismiss that other founded on the power to determine qualifications.

As well say, that, because a constable or policeman may keep order in a city, therefore he may inflict the penalty of death,--or, because a father may impose proper restraint upon a child, therefore he may sell him into slavery.

We have read of an effort to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers; but the present effort to extract a cruel prerogative out of the simple words of the Constitution is scarcely less absurd.

Meanwhile I protest against the false glosses originally fastened upon the Constitution by Slavery, and, now continued, often in unconsciousness of their origin, perverting it to the vilest uses of tyranny.

I protest against that exaggeration of pretension which out of a power to make “regulations” and to determine “qualifications” can derive an unrepublican prerogative.

I protest against that pretension which would make the asserted Equality of States the cover for a denial of the Equality of Men.

As States are a collection of individual men, which ought we to respect most,--the rights of the people composing them, or of the artificial beings resulting from the composition?

High above States, as high above men, are those commanding principles which cannot be denied with impunity.

As man rises in the scale of being while walking in obedience to the Divine will, so is a State elevated by obedience to these everlasting truths.

Nor can we look for harmony in our country until these principles bear unquestioned sway, without any interdict from the States.

That unity for which the Nation longs, with peace and reconciliation in its train, can be assured only through the Equal Rights of All, proclaimed by the Nation everywhere within its limits, and maintained by the national arm.

Then will the Constitution be filled and inspired by the Declaration of Independence, so that the two shall be one, with a common life, a common authority, and a common glory.

I know of no ground on which he could be excluded from his seat, if duly elected; and I should welcome the election of a competent representative of the colored race to either House of Congress as a final triumph of the cause of Equal…

Our fathers established the National Independence; our recent heroes have made it perpetual through those vital principles which can never die.

Such a Senator, if competent, would be a powerful support to the cause of Equal Rights.

Nothing could do so much to settle the question of Equal Rights forever in the United States.

A colored Senator would be as good as a Constitutional Amendment, making all backward steps impossible.

They constitute a part of the national debt, and should be considered in the refunding and consolidation of this debt, and not on a bill to provide banking facilities.

It is a mistake of too constant occurrence to treat the financial question by itself, without considering its dependence upon the abnormal condition through which the country has passed.

The financial question, in all its branches, depends upon the political, and cannot be separated.

It is a part of the political question; and now that Reconstruction seems about to be accomplished, it is that enduring part which still remains.

Our present responsibilities, whether political or financial, have a common origin in that vast Rebellion, when the people of eleven States, maddened by Slavery, rose against the Nation.

It sought nothing less than the dismemberment of our Nation and the establishment of a new power with Slavery as its quickening principle.

The desperate means enlisted by such a cause could be encountered only by the most strenuous exertions in the name of Country and of Human Rights.

Rebel armies menaced the Capitol, and Slavery seemed about to vindicate its wicked supremacy.